becoming.

significance

acknowledging

message to you

love never lived here

matter over mind

everything BLACK

save yourself

acknowledging

you

were the definition of

what a man

father

and a friend

should be.

you

always making something out of nothing possible

you taught me to be in tune with my feelings

but not to be overwhelmed.

you

taught me to be selfless

and to refrain

from treating people

the way they treated me.

you

made sure my eyes were wide open

and ensured my heart was always pure.

There is no amount of thank-yous

worthy enough

to explain the honor i feel

not only to have known you

but to be a portion of everything you were.

you

are the reason i know happiness is not only possible

but achievable.

- i dedicate this to you

Grandfather

thank you.

for believing in me.

ode to the hearts

in need of healing

message to you

dear beautiful soul

i know this thing called life is really hard

it’s

interesting

to say the least

I want you to know that

i believe in you

i want you to know that

you are amazing

i know that you are beautiful

i know a lot of times

family

friends

and all of the relationships in between

want you to stay strong

i want you to know

that it’s ok if you can’t be

however

i pray

we

can find a way to

t o g e t h e r.

from here on out.

i knew that i could fly

well

at least i thought i could.

that was until someone from the distance

yelled for me to get down

you’ll hurt yourself

they said but i knew

if i let go

i would be alright

i knew that if

i took the first step

i’d be soaring through the sky . . .

did you hear me? i said get down!

it’s as if i could feel them coming.

i knew they were upset

who was i to tell them to let go?

be brave

strong

and confident

who was i to tell them to believe?

after all they’ve been here much longer than i have.

they’ve experienced things

that i’m still imagining.

so i decided maybe they were right

and got down.

- dear adolescent

you are wrong

believing that you can fly

is only the beginning.

love never lived here

some say

if it doesn’t hurt

it can’t be love

but

if it does

you

shouldn’t want it anyway

you

looked like everything

i ever wanted

beautiful brown eyes

nice smile

body soft

like sheepskin

i

was mistaken

when nighttime struck

your eyes lit up under the moon

and you

howled through the night

only then did i realize

you

had been pretending

- wolf in sheep’s clothing

it’s funny

how easily the monster in my head

can cuddle me

so softly

while lying in my bed.

i realized

i am nothing with you

even though

i

still

want to stay

i am

waiting

at the end of the promise

you

forgot you made.

do you know what it feels like?

to constantly get pushed out

while

being asked to stay?

only you

telling me that i’m beautiful

as if i’ve never heard it before

only you

giving me everything

i’m looking for

again.

- new bae

being with someone else

doesn’t always feel like

a new start.

i prayed

you

would be my one and only

and you were.

however

for her

you were the same

- the other woman

the problem wasn’t

me belonging to you

it was that

you

never belonged to me.

i stayed longer

longer than i should have

trying to teach you how to love me

when i

didn’t even know

what that meant.

i cried myself to sleep while

you

lay next to me

unbothered

unaware

and

uninterested.

i tucked myself in again that night

and told myself

i didn’t need a goodnight kiss

or empty i love yous

because dreams will be had

regardless of this nightmare.

the more i listen to myself

the closer

i am

to the truth.

trust the voice your gut is pulling from

- instinct

you

are the prettiest bouquet

of dying flowers

i

have ever seen.

i

like a fool

stayed

waiting for the day

you

would do something different

i

was exhausted

slowly beginning to realize

we couldn’t be

because

i couldn’t find the balance

of loving you

while holding on

to me.

i

loved myself first

and even then

they

didn’t love me back

we

have been back at square one

at least

one hundred

times already.

- starting over

don’t stay feeling sorry for me

i’ve been in so many pieces

enough times

to know how to put myself together again.

- pity

attempting to make something a whole

of two halves

isn’t impossible

it just isn’t common

with what we are doing

- broken hearts

i tried to forgive the lies you told

but

your smile

makes me remember

- trust issues

i expected you to fix me

failing to realize soon after

you left

i

would still be broken.

and

the main reason i left

was because you

expected me to stay

here i am

loving something so deeply

and desperately wanting it back

although

if i had it

i wouldn’t have known what to do with it anyway

you

missing me more than you have ever loved me.

- irony

go ahead

talk about me in the worst way imaginable.

just try to forgive yourself

afterwards.

i’m sorry

sounds a lot like

forgive me

but

it’s really meant to mean

i’ll do it again.

not only is it harder

it’s almost

impossible to forgive someone

who expects to be forgiven

again.

i decided

i didn’t want to be a pawn anymore

but

how else would i win

if i didn’t sacrifice

pieces of myself.

- love in the name of chess

because what did love feel like

if it wasn’t abuse anyway

when you left

i didn’t cry because i was broken

i cried

because i survived

you

tried to leave pieces of me

scattered in places i’d never think to check

but i

discovered them anyway

beneath the tear-stained pillowcases

we slept on

the morning mugs

you often placed your lips on

in the shower

as suds replaced your kisses

and

in my heart

where most of them remained

because scattered or not

they didn’t belong to you

and

they would have found their way back to me

anyway.

believe me

i will go on living

just as i was

before we met

i

will not allow this

to make me feel

as though i

can’t

there are

pieces of me

living within people who once held my heart

pieces of me that i never want back

not because i’d need them

to feel whole

but because i gave them away

so someone else could.

and when it was over

i came up gasping for air

as if i’d forgotten how to breathe

- the breakup

love

changed me

it made me feel like

i should be second

it made me forget

i had needs

it made me compromise myself

and ultimately

it broke my heart

you told me to swallow my tongue

not literally of course

but you made it impossible

to speak

without being interrupted

without sounding like i was not smart enough

without ever feeling like

you

were listening

and so

i ate it.

you let the perception of love

abuse you

after raising

nurturing

and most times

stepping completely outside of your being

simply handing yourself over

all because

you

believed

you

found it

so busy being

everything

to no one

that mattered enough

to tell me that

i am

everything.

and just like that

e v e r y t h i n g

about you suddenly changed

the way you looked

the way you talked

and even your actions

because i

no longer cared.

me

attracting people who need me

but don’t know how to treat me

simply because

i

haven’t stayed consistent

and faithful

to myself long enough

to be found

by someone who does.

treating someone the way they treated you

doesn’t prove how badly you were hurt

instead, it’ll prove

how long it takes for you to heal.

you do not feel this bad on your own.

learn to hold people accountable

for how they make you feel.

matter over mind

everyone loves to talk about a sad woman

as if she

doesn’t have a journey

a message

as if she

isn’t a walking testimony

as if she

will never be happy again.

and

if your heart says feel everything,

that’s EXACTLY what you do.

being broken is a matter of opinion

you

attracting people who need you

but

don’t know how to treat you

simply because

you

haven’t stayed consistent and faithful

to yourself

long enough to be found

by someone who does.

i don’t want to remember the pain

h o w e v e r

i also can’t seem to forget

never stop talking about your journey

there will be people who don’t understand that

it isn’t about wanting to stay hurt

it’s always about trying to figure out

how not to be.

it was hard

understanding that eventually

it would stop

eventually it wouldn’t be

so cold

i knew it would be beautiful

but somehow it seemed like it would never end.

- the coldest winter

i am not allowed

to call myself different

when there’s a word

for what i have.

- depression

i kept going

not because i wanted to

trust me, all of me wanted to stop.

i kept going

because i deserved to know

what not giving up on myself felt like.

your love

cut so deep

pain sharp

like a stencil against my body to trace over

- infliction

i felt like i died

at least a million times over

- modern-day feline

i do the best i can

helping everyone i know become better

while they stick around

watching me become worse

it’s rarely a discussion

we aren’t talking about it as much as we should

however, when someone who suffers

within

mental illness dies

you show up for their funeral

and you can’t believe it actually happened

now they’re floating around

on the internet

in pictures

in videos

in all of these memories

. . .

you care.

right?

and

i’ve convinced myself

that no one would want to be with

someone so sad like me anyway

- idle mind

don’t try to get into my head

and make me believe the solution

is in this capsule

as if all of these years i’ve spent

living

thinking

and feeling

could be fixed that easily

- Zoloft

as if talking aloud to someone

who tells me everything i tell myself

when i have a clear spot in my brain

will make the clutter

in my brain

just magically clean itself up

i doubted it

but i went anyway

i sat across from a woman who seemed so pleasant

and eager to help

i kept going because i guess that’s what i was

supposed to be doing

but

what exactly is she

supposed to be doing?

what are these pills

SUPPOSED to be doing?

because whenever i have idle time

i’m reminding myself that i don’t have nine lives

and if i try again i might actually strike out.

i might actually end up tearstained

makeup smothered

on a cold corpse that no longer looks anything like me

because

dying seemed to be the only thing that made sense to me

however

i went again anyway.

she looked at me

with love in her heart

pain in her voice

and defeat in her eyes

and in that moment

i knew

i wouldn’t be going back

- therapy sessions

to wake up every day

telling myself i feel like living today

as if it were that easy

as if i didn’t fight this hard for today

yesterday.

as if i didn’t break every bone in my body

bending and molding

to fit inside places

i probably shouldn’t have been in.

haven’t we all

had our last straw?

questions to a higher power

trying to figure out what went wrong

i know you know what it feels like to not be able

to breathe

to speak

to feel

i know what hands clenched to the chest

from crying all night feels like

and i think you do too

- normal

a lot of people

think

it’s a choice

to be dark

as if sadness were a gift

as if feeling empty

made us whole.

sometimes

we just want someone

to be still.

to understand our stories

to find us in the dark

and choose

to love us out of it.

there is

love

out here for me.

everything BLACK

there is

n o t h i n g

more powerful than us

black kings and queens

we

are the only ones acting like there is

to see

people

develop so much love

to be everything like us

but

the color of our skins

- the power of melanin gods

there are people out here

who would rather see you

hurt

struggling

and suffering

leave them where they are

and say

nothing.

we

are worth much more

than t-shirts

headlines

street names

and

#hashtags

i need more people

who look like me

to make it!

no

i didn’t have to stand around

and watch someone i love

dangle from a tree

to know there are people out here

that still think

we

are disposable

i

won’t ever apologize

to the people who don’t know my struggle

they will never endure my pain.

they do not understand my journey

but they will always be able to hear about it

as long as

i am

able to write about it.

as if killing us off isn’t killing us internally

as if

walking around trying to make it back home

isn’t a mission

as if coming outside

wanting

to go outside

isn’t a mission.

and they thought

letting you out

meant you had justice

as if

that ever

gave you peace

- Kalief Browder

we

have the right to remain silent

but God forbid we speak.

i just want to live in a world

that i’m not afraid

to be alive in.

there isn’t anything redeemable

about hate

but

how powerful we must be

to have it remain infinite for us.

be brave

be bold

and

remain beautiful

no matter how bad you feel

our time isn’t coming

it’s already here.

save yourself

there is

nothing more complicated

than not knowing what you want

and

accepting everything else

that just doesn’t seem worth it

- meantime

you

are not here to be

everything

for someone else

and

nothing

for self.

blessings mean more to some

than praying does

either way

i’m thankful

- priorities

we’ve been given

the tools

the spells

and the power